“This might seem a strange question, but are you the leadership guru?”
“Ha! Well, I work in Leadership Development, but I would never call myself that.”

“You do run courses in Leadership in Oxford, don’t you?”
“Yes, coaching, leadership, management, business studies, and Human Resources.”

“And you’ve written books on the subject?”
“Yes… where’s this going?”

“Well, I’m a bit confused. A friend suggested that I contact you to talk about getting some coaching. He said, you are very supportive, low-key, and help people understand themselves so they achieve things rather than doing goal setting and stuff.”
“It sounds as though he’s done a good selling job for me!”

“Only I looked for you on the internet, and found who I thought was you. He claims to be ‘the most sought after leadership coach’ and goes on about ‘creating outstanding leaders’. That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Gosh! And this is a Graham Wilson?”

“Yes.”
“Well I shall have to take a look.

I only know one other Graham Wilson; he’s from the Caribbean, lives in Canada, and writes TV & radio jingles!

Your friend is right, I work behind the scenes, help leaders – I certainly don’t create them (that’s a bit scary), and I hope I’ve never made such a grand claim.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2018/clones-arent-always/feed/02991Monday 5th March 2018 – The 120th Informal Drink in Oxford – OUR TENTH ANNIVERSARY!http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-march-2018-120th-informal-drink-oxford-tenth-anniversary/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-march-2018-120th-informal-drink-oxford-tenth-anniversary/#respondTue, 05 Dec 2017 23:24:33 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2987Yes, it barely seems possible – we have been meeting every month now for a decade! An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality… Continue Reading →

Yes, it barely seems possible – we have been meeting every month now for a decade!

An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are no fancy structures, no sales pitches, no forced referrals – just decent company, interesting conversation and the bar. Please click the link in the menu, and read the background to the event to get an idea of our ethos.

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

The drink is always held on the first Monday of the month, unless there’s a Bank Holiday, when it is the second Monday. If you’d like the 2018 dates on a convenient wall planner, then download it here.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-march-2018-120th-informal-drink-oxford-tenth-anniversary/feed/02987Monday 5th February 2018 – The 119th Informal Drink in Oxfordhttp://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-february-2018-119th-informal-drink-oxford/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-february-2018-119th-informal-drink-oxford/#respondTue, 05 Dec 2017 23:22:01 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2985An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are… Continue Reading →

An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are no fancy structures, no sales pitches, no forced referrals – just decent company, interesting conversation and the bar. Please click the link in the menu, and read the background to the event to get an idea of our ethos.

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

The drink is always held on the first Monday of the month, unless there’s a Bank Holiday, when it is the second Monday. If you’d like the 2018 dates on a convenient wall planner, then download it here.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-5th-february-2018-119th-informal-drink-oxford/feed/02985Monday 8th January 2018 – The 118th Informal Drink in Oxfordhttp://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-8th-january-2018-118th-informal-drink-oxford/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-8th-january-2018-118th-informal-drink-oxford/#respondTue, 05 Dec 2017 23:19:48 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2983An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are… Continue Reading →

An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are no fancy structures, no sales pitches, no forced referrals – just decent company, interesting conversation and the bar. Please click the link in the menu, and read the background to the event to get an idea of our ethos.

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

The drink is always held on the first Monday of the month, unless there’s a Bank Holiday, when it is the second Monday. If you’d like the 2018 dates on a convenient wall planner, then download it here.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-8th-january-2018-118th-informal-drink-oxford/feed/02983Are your bum and balls up for some Continuing Professional Development (CPD)?http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/bum-balls-continuing-professional-development-cpd/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/bum-balls-continuing-professional-development-cpd/#respondSat, 25 Nov 2017 17:14:38 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2978I have already had one pop at CPD as it is practiced in many quasi-professions. Don’t misunderstand me… I am totally committed to the constant updating of my knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards any of the quasi-professions in which I… Continue Reading →

I have already had one pop at CPD as it is practiced in many quasi-professions.

Don’t misunderstand me… I am totally committed to the constant updating of my knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards any of the quasi-professions in which I practice (which include, but are not limited to, psychotherapy, coaching, teaching (lecturing and tutoring), swimming instruction, photography, leadership, business studies (including HR management), current affairs, and politics.

I do this through a wide range of activities; reading (books, journal articles, magazines – on- and off-line), watching (as in films, documentaries, and others), attending (conferences, seminars, networking events), organising (film evenings, informal networking events), supervision (through peer-to-peer conversation; individually and collectively – both in-person, and online through Reciprocoach). Above all, though, I do and I reflect. I keep a reflective journal, and (while I can have long periods in which I am usually working flat-out and write relatively little in my Journal) this is an invaluable space to put pegs in the ground to do things differently in the future.

Much of my ‘doing’ is documented, especially my teaching, and most lessons have notes on them for inclusion in the next run of a course, or a session within one.

I measure the worth of any of these activities according to what I get out of it, not what it costs me. Thus, a lunch with a possible collaborator, attended by his Art Director, might quite easily figure more highly in my inspiration than a three-day conference with a load of competitors.

Sadly, many of the quasi-professions don’t see things in this way. Some dismiss ANY kind of learning other than attendance at THEIR annual conference. Many only accept attendance at approved training events. You clear your diary, you book into the kind of hotel that you would never want to stay at normally, in a part of the world usually chosen for its Godforesakenness, eating food that you know isn’t healthy from the moment you sense its presence in the same building as you. You arrive at ‘registration’ and collect your ‘goody bag’ from which you remove the tiny bottle of water, and free sample of nutty-snack, before leaving it on a seat somewhere (initially by accident) to be lost, camouflaged, in a pile of identical bags. In the lecture room, you join peers from around the realm, who smile distrustingly, nod the odd acquaintance, and then bury their heads in the paper handouts and programme. Two days pass. You have sat in this seat for six hours a day, and thereby accrued 12 CPD credits. But what have you learned?

That your bum is capable of considerable endurance? But you’re a psychotherapist, so you knew THAT already.

In a room of, say, 30 people, there will be a few who emerge truly enlightened. There will be some who are so completely bored that they spent most of the time dropping off, or furtively Facebooking or fixed to their Kindle. There will be a pool in the middle, who “find these things soooo inspiring”, and yet, when you ask, “so how are you going to use this last talk in your work?” glaze over and notice a friend on the other side of the coffee thermos.

On one occasion, I tried tweeting a running commentary – as much to keep me engaged as anything else. All the tweets were in upbeat terms and usually what were intended to be interesting summaries. During the start of the second day, someone from the organising committee told me to stop because I couldn’t be concentrating on the speakers sufficiently…

At one memorable event, there was a participant at the back of the room knitting. I thought this was particularly creative. My mother used to be able to chat quite easily while knitting (she attended a weekly ‘knit and natter’ group, after all), and at least this lady wasn’t completely wasting her time. I had a chat with her over tea and she immediately confirmed what I suspected – she’d been in practice for 20yrs and was only there for the CPD ‘hours’.

I urge you to look closely at what YOU do for CPD. It may be costing a lot, and mildly inspiring, but what exactly have you learned? Didn’t you do that already? Now, what COULD you be doing that would genuinely improve your confidence and competence in your particular field?

There’s little sign of this ridiculous approach stopping. There’s a whole industry of CPD providers now engaged in it. The leaflet for one came across my desk this morning. Apparently, he is a “world-renowned author, psychiatrist, lecturer, and intellectual giant”. Some folk have kindly suggested that I run some of these workshops. Sadly, though, therein lies my problem. You see, while I am happy to accept that my bum can endure hours of passive mistreatment, I wouldn’t have the balls to claim that I was an “World-renowned, intellectual giant”!

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/bum-balls-continuing-professional-development-cpd/feed/02978A few questions about ‘customer delight’http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/questions-customer-delight/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/questions-customer-delight/#respondFri, 03 Nov 2017 13:46:18 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2972There is a model of networking that says; get to know me, like me, and then trust me, and then (and only then) will I be likely to become your ambassador. The author of an email that I just received,… Continue Reading →

There is a model of networking that says; get to know me, like me, and then trust me, and then (and only then) will I be likely to become your ambassador.

The author of an email that I just received, clearly, doesn’t understand this.

In their unsolicited message, their first contact with me on LinkedIn, they say;

I would like your POV about something I am working on;
Jeff Bezos has Amazon focused on solving customer delight. It¹s his number 1 concern in 2017. He has 5 teams working on this problem now. The winning team owns the solution and will scale the results across Amazon, pushing revenue significantly higher by 2019.
Why customer delight? Quantifying and leveraging customer delight prevents disruption, scales profits, lowers retention cost better than any marketing or technology answer.
We invented what Jeff wants. We call it customer delight analytics and solved it using a lexical based approach along with machine learning algorithms. Our technology plugs into most CRM and CMS based systems. Based on your profile, I was wondering if you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us?

Which prompted a lot of questions in my mind;

Is customer delight a ‘problem’? Can it be ‘solved’?

Is it appropriate to ‘set up’ competition between quality improvement teams in order to address it?

What if customer delight can be achieved only at the expense of revenue and profit? Would you still pursue it then?

Why would the leader of an already highly successful enterprise desire ‘significantly higher’ revenue in a time when inflation is measured in very small numbers, other than for personal greed at the expense of others?

Did a 21st century organisation invent ‘customer delight’? Or have customers been delighted by some vendors since the first transactions happened in the palaeolithic?

Would I ‘partner’ with such an entity without them getting to know me, like me, and trust me, beforehand?

What kind of credibility does an organisation have when they try to involve me in their marketing from day one?

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/questions-customer-delight/feed/02972How important is quality today?http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/important-quality-today/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/important-quality-today/#respondFri, 03 Nov 2017 02:34:25 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2965You’re a 4 star hotel… Do you replace the poster or leave it hoping that nobody thinks you take the same slapdash approach to your service etc? There was a time – in the 80s and 90s – when quality… Continue Reading →

You’re a 4 star hotel… Do you replace the poster or leave it hoping that nobody thinks you take the same slapdash approach to your service etc?

There was a time – in the 80s and 90s – when quality gurus would tell you, without any doubt, that this poster should be removed as soon as the error was spotted and replaced with a corrected version. Their arguments were around subliminal messaging, to both customers and staff, that a slipshod attitude to standards was alright in this establishment.

However, the firms that were the loudest proponents of these ideas in the West (Motorola, General Motors, and many others) have largely disappeared off the radar of current best management practice.

And yet, the speed of transmission of these kinds of issues, through social media especially, ironically make them potentially far more serious in terms of reputational damage.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/important-quality-today/feed/02965RSA Watch Oxford – Changing Society (30 October 2017)http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/rsa-watch-oxford-changing-society-30-october-2017/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/rsa-watch-oxford-changing-society-30-october-2017/#respondMon, 16 Oct 2017 18:54:07 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2962Every quarter, I host an evening of screenings of recent talks given to the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA). The evening consists of a series of screenings and discussion around the themes, supported by free wine and nibbles! We… Continue Reading →

Every quarter, I host an evening of screenings of recent talks given to the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA). The evening consists of a series of screenings and discussion around the themes, supported by free wine and nibbles! We call this ‘social watching’.

Known as “RSA Watch Oxford”, the next of these is on Monday 30th October 2017 from 18:30 to 21:00 at City of Oxford College, Oxford and is on the theme of Social Change. You don’t need to be a Fellow to attend, just someone interested in the theme and in open conversation around it.

the plan is that we shall show video clips of presentations at RSA House from the following speakers:

Steven Sloman – The Knowledge Illusion

Hugo Mercier – The Function of Reason

Jonathan Haidt – Why we are convinced we’re right

Catherine Mackinnon – Butterfly Effect

Alberto Alemanno – Making Social Change Happen

Vanessa van Edwards – Captivate

Matthew d’Ancona – Post-Truth

Dexter Dias – Why humans hurt each other

Duncan Green – How change happens

For those who are new to the concept of RSA Watch Oxford, we gather at 6:30pm, fill our glasses, settle down, and watch a number of short extracts of talks given at the RSA to a live audience. We break mid-way, replenish, perhaps have a conversation related to the films seen so far, and then when the time is right, we watch a further selection. The discussion is then continued, drawing out themes that the group identify. We will finish at around 9:00pm.

Finally, the facilitator will summarise these and an output – a blog post – is produced to record our conversations. This is shared with the wider RSA Fellowship.

This mind/body split (apparantly due to Descartes, a philosopher) is rapidly changing. If you look at recent TV documentaries, medical doctors and scientists are taking a holistic approach to physical and mental functioning and wellbeing, much of which we have control of through our behaviour and attitudes, and mental health stigma is rapidly shifting as most people now have some exposure/experience (personal or via social network) of mental health issues, interestingly, as our social connectedness has decreased (and our online social networks/stressors increase), people have experienced greater vulnerability to stress and all of its physical/mental and aging prematurely implications. They say 90% of all GP visits are stress-related.

For someone who claims to be an SPSS Analyst, I’m rather amazed at the faulty logic. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a widely used software program for statistical analysis in social science. The individual makes some pretty rudimentary mistakes for an ‘analyst’.

My response;

I would agree with most of what you say, but I’m concerned that some people reading it might attribute cause and effect to these two variables: “interestingly, as our social connectedness has decreased (and our online social networks/stressors increase), people have experienced greater vulnerability to stress” It is equally ‘interesting’ that as driving tests have become more rigourous, so there are more road traffic incidents. Nor, for that matter, am I aware of any direct correlation between “social networks” and “stressors” – that may be your experience, but you’ll find a lot of people for whom the ability to engage with distant friends through social media is a significant coping mechanism.

I neglected to challenge the 90% of all GP visits claim. That is just too ridiculous to waste our time on.

We know that many people don’t trust experts. Indeed, one Leave Campaigner said as much when offering another complete distortion in their favour prior to the referendum. Sadly, its poor communication of the kind I’ve highlighted here that undermines those experts and leads to all kinds of travesties.

Worse though, IMHO, are modern-day snake oil sales people who KNOW that they are peddling stuff that doesn’t work, and yet persist. Worse still, is when they can only reply in vulgarities…

For the record, there is no evidence that NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) works. There have been extensive attempts to replicate its claims and they consistently fail to do so. This was summed up in a 2012 paper in the British Journal of General Practice (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3481516/). Sadly, there are still some well qualified and experienced psychologists who persist in selling quick fixes to vulnerable clients (usually at a substantial cost). When I pointed out the lack of evidence to one such purveyor (in this case, 8 days for £2000), I was offered the following wonderful response;

“Graham I spent 6 years studying psychology and more years studying counselling, psychotherapy and doing mental health training. All research has to be paid for and vested interests pays for it. As someone who has run a private practice for 22 years, run a non-profit for 8 years, worked in education, PRUs, and with those who have been abused I can honestly say that you cab stuff your conventional models where the sun don’t shine. Give me NLP, EFT and Amygdala Depotentiation Therapy (Havening) any day of the week May your arrogance and assumptions keep you company. And heaven help your clients.”

So far, there’s virtually nothing published about Havening, but Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT) is a different matter, with a growing body of evidence that it does work in clinical settings.

]]>http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/professionals-dont-think-twice-snake-oil-sales-go-unchecked/feed/12955Monday 6th November 2017 – The 116th Informal Drink in Oxfordhttp://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-6th-november-2017-116th-informal-drink-oxford/
http://www.the-confidant.info/2017/monday-6th-november-2017-116th-informal-drink-oxford/#respondFri, 11 Aug 2017 17:25:06 +0000http://www.the-confidant.info/?p=2941An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are… Continue Reading →

An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are no fancy structures, no sales pitches, no forced referrals – just decent company, interesting conversation and the bar. Please click the link in the menu, and read the background to the event to get an idea of our ethos.

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

The drink is always held on the first Monday of the month, unless there’s a Bank Holiday, when it is the second Monday. If you’d like the 2017 dates on a convenient wall planner, then download it here.